


Start Over

by AngelicEclair



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 10:53:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20241670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelicEclair/pseuds/AngelicEclair
Summary: A vent piece.





	Start Over

**Author's Note:**

> This is a vent piece and contains mature content such as suicidal ideations and the implied act of carrying out suicide. Do not read if this will harm your mental health in any way.
> 
> Suggested listening: Low - Lullaby

The end of the world went by many names, all of which were unrivaled in their power to conjure up so many repulsive sensations at once.

(Y/N) left the end unnamed in her head and thought of it as the genesis of her inelegant undoing, but perhaps it was not wholly the fault of the end of the world. Maybe it was more so the fault of a man who saw himself as the sole savior of what was left behind.

During her relentless struggle for her survival and residual sanity, (Y/N) discovered no one was an island, that everyone was a part of a continent, of the whole. Loss of someone unknown felt like an alarming blow to the potential of possibly restoring the despoiled earth one day.

(Y/N) saw it akin to Donne's _For Whom The Bell Tolls_, a work that had not struck a chord with her until after the fall.

(Y/N) recalled the time when there were funeral bells. It was a reminder that we are nearer death each day, that the bell tolled for her as well as everyone else.

But above that, the poem insinuated that all people were one, and when one dies, everyone dies a little. The counterpoint would be that there is some part of the living in the dead and that we continue a form of life after death, but (Y/N) would never be able to read accounts of those who died and came back, what they felt, saw, and heard. Nothing to comfort her tormented mind.

Maybe all that ever existed was suffering. Perhaps the fall of mankind just stripped away the glossy finish and opened up the eyes of the blissfully unconcerned.

(Y/N) would never read all the books she wanted, so she was thankful she learned a few poems by heart. They had become the marrow in her bones. Like fluoride in the water, they made her soul impervious to the world's soft decay for a while.

While gnashing mouths foamed for her and infected her found-family, she remembered her readings and forced herself to be miles away in her safe bedroom of warm, oyster beige. She would recall holed up studying for school and daydreaming of all the things she could be.

Now, she lived in a world where dreams were made to be dashed in the most violent ways possible.

She could never be all the people she wanted nor live all the lives she wanted.

Back in those years, (Y/N) saw her life branching out before her like a peach tree, flourishing in some sunny orchard in Georgia.

Now, from the tip of every branch, fat, rotting peaches hung. Each one a fantastic future pungent and wrinkled. One peach was a spouse and a happy home.

Each one began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at her feet.

Despite her life having been short and "useless" to some, (Y/N) felt like she had lived and felt all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in her short life and was thankful even as it drilled down in a fiery tailspin.

Her only fear was what would happen when there was no one left to tell the stories of her and the other survivors?

Would anyone even know she had ever existed? Would there be no one to publish the horrors they faced daily?

What if the stories would morph into something they never were like a schoolyard game of Telephone - sitting in a circle, one student whispering a phrase into another student's ear, passing the words around until the last student in the circle repeats what they hear, only to find out it is nothing like what it is supposed to be.

(Y/N) was a woman gulping down an entire world's grief. The sting the constant choking and gagging on her vexation was only dulled by him.

Negan.

When she first arrived at The Sanctuary, Negan took an interest in her. It was not an uncommon thing, he had an eye for pretty girls.

Despite him being...himself.

Nevertheless, Negan seemed to genuinely care for the Saviors under his command. He was also clearly fun-loving with such theatrical mannerisms.

But he had rules for his Saviors that were carved in stone. If someone crossed him, he would snuff them out jovially.

Negan did not seem like someone to confide in, but as (Y/N) rose up the ranks, her relationship with the big boss became closer.

Having gone so long without telling a soul how she was fairing, the opportunity to open up to Negan himself stopped her dead in her tracks, Her words were so rusty and feeble being in the disappointments room for so long.

(Y/N), Negan and Simon were dubbed the "Three Amigos" begrudgingly by some.

(Y/N) wasn't just going to his room for heart-to-hearts.

How could she explain "the love"?

It was magic. Negan knew just how to reach up and pull anything he wanted out of thin air. His way of speaking was comical, but he always made solid points and told the most entertaining tales.

Yes, she was infatuated with him. No one had ever heightened such a keen capacity of physical sensation in her before.

Often times, (Y/N) considered cutting him out because she couldn't stand being a passing fancy, but she knew it was likely to happen.

For the time being, it was euphoric having someone to understand her a little, love her a little. Having won a share of his affection was like taking a scalding shower after a long day of scouting, sweating, and rummaging around guts.

But that was all it was - a share of his affection.

She knew she should not have attached herself to anyone who showed her the least bit of attention because she was lonely. Loneliness is base human condition. No one would ever fill that space.

But, still, (Y/N) perked up and felt the warmth she had long-forgotten when he spoke to her like a companion, when he flirted with her, and when he told her he enjoyed her company.

His gruff voice made her drunk - it was deep and sun-warmed. It was hypnotic, the hint of Southern twang and all.

Negan seemed to express well-kept emotions through song. To many, it was obnoxious to see someone so lackadaisical, but it gave (Y/N) a smidge of hope when he scuffed around crooning Is This Love by Whitesnake on his daily patrols around the compound.

It made her hopeful like life could make sense again, at least parts of it could.

He was destroying her with feelings, feelings she had not experienced since her love died.

She wanted all of him or nothing at all. She could not take the in-between.

The only thing she craved more than Negan was to be reunited with her love. Every passing moment she felt a twinge of need for Negan, she felt like clawing her skin off of her body. She felt sick, twisted, and guilty as if she were disrespecting their memory.

She was weak. She said she would never let anyone touch her again.

She told herself she was tired of men. Hanging in doorways, slurring their words, and standing too close, the smell of fifteen-year-old whiskey on their breath. They did not respect her position or her merits. They slammed doors, eyes followed her, grabbed her, took what they felt was theirs. It was a movie, and she knew how it ended, so she did not want to audition.

But Negan's hands were so big, so warm, so calloused. His eyes were so devilish, so hazel, so harrowing. She could not deny, not even to the ghost of her past love, that she needed him.

So, she let him set the air between them on fire and let him, oh, how pristinely he had put it, "screw her lights out." Again and again and again. She broke all her rules for him.

She knew she had to leave one way or another. Her feelings were like that of a landmine - undetectable on the surface, but ready to combust.

What would be it be like not to feel this way, she thought.

Death must be so beautiful, she thought. To finally be silent and numb - to lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to nothing at all. To forget mistakes. To forget everything at all.

(Y/N) had made up her mind. Like everything else, death was an art, and she wanted to do it exceptionally well.

She planned to go out during her favorite time of year when the ale-amber sunlight fell across the reddening trees when the days were like frozen iron, but before winter came and made life ten times harder.

Today was the day.

She would talk to Negan one last time. She would tell him she was going off on her own, but that was not the whole truth. If Negan knew what she had planned, he would call her a coward and talk her out of it, put her under surveillance like he had done to others. People would take shifts watching them at night, making sure they did not off themselves before Negan could.

(Y/N) walked through The Sanctuary with purpose, watching the blue of the evening turn to velvet indigo.

She arrived at his bedroom door and knocked thrice.

His eyes glinted mischievously at her.

As his eyes adjusted, (Y/N) felt like an undeveloped photograph, her image rising to the surface under his gaze.

She was beautiful, but she was also a lot of other things, but she hated labels. She was a soldier, a warrior, a scavenger, a Savior, a writer, a dreamer. She was mutable, fluid with both fear and desire, ideals, and angles.

She was also Negan's, but so was everyone else, really.

His annihilating smile. It was as haunting and white as the moon.

"Well, howdy-fuckin'-hey there."

Negan hung in the doorway, but (Y/N) walked past him.

She had to say her piece before she chickened out.

"You look like shit. Are you sick or something?"

(Y/N) shook her head and readied her words.

Negan wanted to say something like "spit it the fuck out", but he could tell (Y/N) was struggling to begin.

"I'm not..."

(Y/N) felt her blood slam against her eardrums as she watched Negan's eyes narrow. It was like walking over broken glass whenever she broached the subject of his dead wife.

"Lucille..." (Y/N)'s breath shook as she exhaled.

"I could never replace her, and I would never want to. She was and is your real love."

Negan watched her like a hawk as she shifted her weight back and forth uncomfortably.

"I know I must have overestimated my importance – I'm not even a wife. I know that doesn't matter though. We still had some very delicate moments. I think I almost came close to seeing the human in you."

The human in Negan only emerged after sex was through. After he had rutted every feeling, good, bad, and otherwise into (Y/N) and they lay in a sticky sheen. Quiet contemplation would stretch on for a while, then he would turn to her and stroke her cheek. His whiskey-dark eyes were round and kind as she told her how beautiful she was.

In that brief space of time, things felt normal, but then the silence would drift over them like a heavy mist, and they could hear the wet snarls of the walkers outside the fences, leaving (Y/N) feeling frozen and helpless. Even Negan felt a twinge deep inside, below the anesthetized exoskeleton.

The rest of the time, while they were in view of everyone else, he treated her like any other Savior.

When they were out of view, he wanted to smash his lips against hers and fuck away his memories.

Negan had never had a handle on his emotions and being with Lucille only exacerbated that quality in him. In the beginning, they were prone to bashing heads like billygoats, but it grew into something toxic and suffocating.

Their marriage was falling apart, and it was no one's fault, really. The couple just didn't get along anymore.

Not of his own volition, he was piledriven by a long-buried memory:

_"Do you love her?"_

_Negan could not give Lucille a direct answer, nor could he look her in the eyes. He just repeated what he had been telling her for the past few months that had been warped with her suspicion - "I'll always come home to you."_

_White-hot tears dribbled down Lucille's cheeks. It seemed all the could ever accomplish of late was bellowing at each other and meaningless sex._

_"I don't want that, Negan. I just want you to stay at home with me. I just want you to be with me."_

_He shook his head at her. "Lucille, I can't fucking do that."_

_The tears stopped coming, and Lucille willed them away, angrily wiping her face and blinking them back. "Why not? Why did you ever marry me, Negan, if you were going to just string me along and screw some whore?"_

_"Don't you fucking call her that."_

_"I wouldn't have to call her that if you'd give me a name! Tell me who she is!" Her ears were ringing, and her throat hurt._

_Then came the same insecure rehashing of prying questions from Lucille. _

_"Is she younger than me? Thinner than me? Is she prettier than me?" Her tears salted her lips._

_Negan turned away from her._

_"Please, Negan. We can start over. Please, let's just start over."_

_Start Over._

Then it all came to a head. Lucille died. The world ended along with her. The dead rose, and Negan's entire world turned on its head. He was plunged into the thick of it, no time to grieve. It was do or die, and he was not going to cower and be known as the man who's mind fell to pieces for having only realized his feelings for his wife while she was on her deathbed.

Negan could barely hear (Y/N) explanation as to why she was going off on her own over his own memories. It was something about feeling trapped, but it was peppered with promises to come back and visit, bring supplies, and help out whenever she could. She said she would never be too far away.

"So, this is fucking it?" He finally drawled.

(Y/N) was silent.

"Hell, I'd join you if I didn't have all these pencil-dick saps depending on me. If it were any other world, I'd probably fucking grab your shoulders and shake the shit out of you and try and get it through that thick-ass head of yours how bad going off on your own is, but I know you wouldn't listen anyway."

(Y/N) smiled sadly.

"I know you love me in some way - your way. I love you. No one should have gone through what he have, but we did, and we became better from it. I have learned so much from you, but I hope you have learned one thing from me - this isn't how you have to be, Negan."

(Y/N) clutched the duffle bag of useless supplies and drew herself up from his chair.

"Bye, Negan."

"Get fuckin' lost (Y/N)," Negan smirked.

(Y/N) smirked back.

She waved goodbye to those she saw on her way out, seeking out Simon but not being able to find him.

(Y/N) wandered into a clearing as silent as a sylvan doe. The walkers in the distance were bobbing around unaware of her presence, but the crows that hopped along the flattened grass called out to her, black bead eyes staring burning into hers. They were like little cloaked reapers.

(Y/N)'s suicide note had been a form of a plea to the man she loved and feared the most in the rotten world.

_Start over. You still can._

_Start over, start over, start over. _

Words to be echoed until they became utterly hollow and meaningless to him.

Negan sat wading in thought as (Y/N) drew her revolver, unbeknownst to him. His heart ached faintly. He would miss (Y/N), and not just because of the sex, but for the long, non-judgemental talks, how well she worked alongside Simon, her writing, her insight, her smile, her laugh, her presence.

_ **Her.** _

He didn't jump at the gunshot as if he were expecting it all along.

His chest filled with seething anger. She lied to him, and for the second time, he had fallen in love with a woman right as they died.


End file.
